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Jeffco Public Schools would cut 136 employee positions under a proposed budget rolled out May 13 that cuts $14 million over the previous year’s spending.

Increased class sizes, higher athletic fees, fewer transportation routes and reduced choices for electives would result from the budget, which was designed in the face of massive cuts in state funding.

Familiar tones of “Pomp and Circumstance” echoed at South Jeffco graduations last week, when at least 670 high school seniors earned the right to turn tassels. Commencements took place for Chatfield High, D’Evelyn High and Front Range Christian School.

Despite the standard processional fare, ceremonies ranged from traditional stripes of speech-and-music intervals to one at a church, where family members placed their hands on graduates and prayed for them.

The Colorado General Assembly ended the 2010 legislative session last week, concluding months of active lobbying by Jefferson County on a handful of bills. The county, which has a $48,000 annual contract with the Lombard & Clayton lobbying firm, promoted several pieces of legislation of specific interest to Jeffco:

About 100 new jobs will be coming to the South Jeffco area, as a brand new chain of supermarkets prepares to open this summer. SmartCo Foods, a planned group of five big-box grocery-and-farmers market hybrids, will host a jobs fair May 20 and 21 in Denver.

“We’re looking to hire people for all five of the stores,” said company spokesman Randall Oliver. “We are hoping that we can get all those slots filled before the stores open.”

Dozens of middle-school teams from across the state congregated May 22 for the 20th Junior Solar Sprint Car Competition, a series of model-car races powered by the sun.

Though the event is traditionally held outdoors, the 2010 event was held in the Dakota Ridge High School gym due to high winds that were capable of blowing the light vehicles of their tracks. Fifty-five teams from 17 middle schools, including one from D’Evelyn, charged battery packs outside, transferring energy collected by their solar panels.

Liquor sales are likely to resume at Fun City, the new business entity that has taken over the former Mr. Biggs location in South Jeffco. The county liquor board last week granted a temporary permit for the business following a district court’s issuance of a restraining order.

“What it did in effect was reinstate the license,” assistant county attorney Martin McKinney said of the court’s order, which was prompted after Fun City’s owner, Littleton Holdings, filed the case.

A 41-year-old man was killed May 13 when a new 3,000-pound bank safe tipped over during its installation and pinned him against a door at a South Jeffco bank.

Donald Lindsay, a Thornton resident who worked for Security & Safe of Colorado, was installing the unit at the Chase bank at 12482 W. Ken Caryl Ave. The massive safe fell about 11 a.m., and rescue workers were unable to move it until about 4:45 p.m.

Republican state Sen. Mike Kopp, only two weeks after being unanimously elected to replace Sen. Josh Penry as minority leader, said he is looking forward to next year’s legislative session but that his job will not be easy.

“It’s a little bit like herding cats, all things considered,” said Kopp, who represents South Jeffco in the state Senate.

A fully restored World War II-era “Flying Fortress” took to the skies May 15 and 16 above Jefferson County. The Liberty Belle, a circa-1945 B-17 bomber and mobile museum, took off and landed at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, where for one weekend history and aviation buffs could buy about half an hour of midair nostalgia.

In the basement of their South Jeffco home Dakotah Mann and his mother, Stefanie, are carefully stacking Olympic weights on a homemade structure made of nothing but tiny strips of rolled up newspaper and glue. They manage to pile 525 pounds on top of the seemingly fragile 38.4-gram creation, and it shows no sign of weakening.

Slowly, they release their grip on the final 45-pound weight. A crunch breaks the silence, and hundreds of pounds of iron drop less than an inch before hitting safety guards, the clank of each plate resonating.